


Golden Boy

by Winterling42



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29930772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: At the end of one perfectly normal day, Jonnit's life changes forever...
Kudos: 3
Collections: Jonnit Week 2021





	Golden Boy

It was late afternoon by the time Jonnit went down to feed the chickens. The metal rim of the feed bucket banged into his shins with every step, no matter how he held it. It was just a bit too cold for shirt-sleeves. Maybe winter was coming on. He blew a tuft of hair out of his face and looked up towards the setting sun. Hip always said, “Red clouds at night, aeriner’s delight.” 

These clouds were all orange and pink, but not really red. Jonnit set down the bucket so he could hold a hand up to the wind, pretending he could tell tomorrow’s season by which way it was blowing. It was _definitely_ going to be winter tomorrow.

That’s when he saw something glinting, high up in the old oak tree. His hand turned into a visor against the fading shine of the sun, and...there it was again! Something shining, way up at the top of the tree. Jonnit left the feed bucket in the road and went to investigate, clambering over fences and over to the truly enormous oak in the corner of the sheep fold. Branches bigger than he could wrap his arms around spread out just a few feet above the ground. It was old hat to go over and haul himself up. He already knew which branches were sturdy, which ones were just the right height and which ones were really dead ends. 

It was harder to see the glinty thing from inside. Jonnit clambered to the top of the canopy by a familiar route, then crept further, out onto branches that bent dangerously under his weight. 

Finally he spotted it—a feather, almost a foot long and shining like gold and— 

And it had spotted him, too. There were _eyes_ , at least five of them, looking at him out of the golden sheen of the feather. Jonnit froze. The branch it was on wavered slightly in the cold wind, and he felt his own branch swaying. The sunlight glinted again off of the metallic gold, blinding him for a second. But the thing was still there when his vision cleared, caught in the corner of a branch. It slipped a little, in the wind, and Jonnit found himself reaching out to catch it without thinking. 

Afterwards, he wasn’t really sure if he could have reached it...or if the feather blew free of the branch and into his hand of its own accord. Either way, his fingers closed around the almost-invisible weight. And then, with a swoop of vertigo, he was Somewhere Else. Seeing the fleet, _his_ fleet, spread out around him. The high, cold air around a skyship, the featherweave above him. _His crew_ waiting on orders behind. More than that, he was Someone Else— still himself, but older. More knowing, more _confident_. 

And then it was over. Jonnit found himself on the ground, but he didn’t feel like he’d fallen. He stared up at the sky through the tree branches, all oranges and blues and then deep, starless black. When he raised a hand to look, it was still clutching the feather. An eye at the top stared at him for a moment, and then slowly blinked shut. It was as if it’d never been there at all. 


End file.
